Hello! I'm still pretty new to the Heroes Unlimited (and Palladium in general) ruleset and I'm running into a couple issues with character creation, namely Initiative bonuses (if there are any?) and how to deal with perception mechanically.

For Initiative, I know individual powers or certain levels of combat styles will give you bonuses, but P.P. mentions you get bonuses after 30 but doesn't mention anything between 16 and 30.Let's say my 1st level character has a P.P. of 20, Hand-to-Hand: Expert, and no Initiative bonuses from powers, magic, or psionics. It seems I have no bonus to initiative. Is that accurate?

For perception, I can't find a single thing in all my browsing through the rulebook about how to notice hidden or stealthy things! Even my group's more experienced players are defaulting to Research skill rolls, but that feels very clunky and wrong.Where are these mechanics in the books? ARE they in the book?

You are correct, you only get an initiative bonus from your PP if its say 33, 36, 39 ... and depending on the book you look in it can be 34...38...42...45. PP Maxes at 45. MOST heroes won't even come close to that and if they do it's still a bit difficult. Some HTH's like in Rifter #7 or Ninjas & Superspies do add Initiative bonus. Otherwise it's d20 and the highest number goes first.

As for perception I have a home metric for perception bonus. If you look at the attribute chart, say the PP bonus chart but instead you substitute IQ for that then you can easily have perception bonuses.

For perception, I can't find a single thing in all my browsing through the rulebook about how to notice hidden or stealthy things! Even my group's more experienced players are defaulting to Research skill rolls, but that feels very clunky and wrong.Where are these mechanics in the books? ARE they in the book?

I would be interested in how this works also or at least a page number where it is discussed.

I think Perception was first introduced in BtS-2 (Not sure about that, though). On page 170, there's quite a bit of discussion about it. It almost mirrors what's printed in RUE on page 368. In both books, there are also rules about Perception rolls vs. Prowl, Concealment and some other skills. Interesting stuff.

I, too, like using percentile dice as opposed to a D20 for skills. A D20 is one-fifth as precise, which strikes me as being clunky. How do you represent a skill of 43% or 71% with a roll of a D20? I don't believe you can. Using only a D20 limits skills to increments of 5% for both base and bonuses when leveling up. I also like the fact that some difficult or highly specialized skills only offer a 3% or 4% bonus when advancing levels. Sometimes those few percentage points can make or break an attempt at a skill and makes for some seriously dramatic storytelling! Plus, I get to ROLL MORE DICE!

indeed, Kev's always used percentile, and when d20 hit, always wanted to avoid d20, so yeah percentile is the way to go.

I've actually written about adding Perception and Intuition as skills everyone has, the idea for me is that anyone can use these two, but if you have a professional skill like detect ambush, surveillance, or psychology then you use that, because it has a higher percentage. Of course that also means that those professional skills shouldn't be starting at 25%.

When you have contested skills you don't need everything starting so low because even at 100%, there's still room for failure.

Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2007 9:40 pmPosts: 9412
Comment: Palladium Books Canon is set solely by Kevin Siembieda, either in person, or by his approval of published material.

Just my thoughts here.I use perception for general "noticing things if nothing else applies"But your perception skill is never going to be as good as the narrower skills like Spot Hidden, Detect Secret Doors, Detect Ambush et multiple cetera.

I am toying with doing a reverse conversion and turning perception from a d20 roll into a d100 roll... so that I can award more finely graduated bonuses and make it easier to add in bonuses and penalties.

_________________The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

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